


Daddies, Bosses, and Big Brothers

by 3wisellamas



Category: OK K.O.! Let's Be Heroes
Genre: Fluff, Gen, Sibling Bonding, almost too much fluff, some mentions of parental neglect but nothing worse than in the show
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-10
Updated: 2019-07-10
Packaged: 2020-06-25 15:08:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,167
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19748230
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/3wisellamas/pseuds/3wisellamas
Summary: If her Boss isn't going to spend time with Fink, then hopefully a big brother is just as good.(I had a lot of feelings after KO vs Fink.  Now you get to read them.)





	Daddies, Bosses, and Big Brothers

"But I fought just as good as you and he didn’t say _anything_ to me! It isn’t fair!"

She ignored her coworker’s incessant complaints as he trodded dejectedly down the hall behind her, and made sure the sour expression on her face was well-hidden as she threw her bedroom door open and stomped in, nonchalantly dropping her newest toy onto the floor just inside. Even without the ability to see her irritation directly, her actions easily tipped the robot off to her demeanor. 

"Fink, why are _you_ mad? He even got you a present for doing so good!" Darrell poked his head in after her, and glanced around the room. "In fact, you've got like a million presents, and you never even opened 'em, what the heck! All I ever get is these...upgrades to my new bio-components." He leaned against the doorframe and shuddered, his face unconsciously contorting in disgust. "It's like the only thing Professor Daddy even wants to do with me anymore is give me orders or tear me open to mess with my circuits, like Regular Daddy used to do with my old weapons."

Fink dove head-first into her nest-bed, slamming her face into the straw and pulling a blanket over her. "Well, whoop-de-do, sounds like a fun time you two get to have."

"It isn't though!" he shouted. "In fact, the last couple times he did that I got this really bad headache, that he says is just a side effect and it'll go away but it hasn't!" Fink glanced up at Darrell as he tapped a claw to his braincase, now sporting an unhealthy green glow, and he winced at the tiny impact.

"But that's just...work stuff though," he continued, pouting, as his listener just covered her ears. "It's not really spending time together for real. You and your daddy do way more stuff together than that! And way more than me and my daddy!"

Fink scowled at his words. "He's my boss, Darrell. He's not my daddy."

"Heck, just, look at all this!" Darrell took a few steps into Fink's room, lightly kicking a few grenades out of the way, and waved his arms around as if to show Fink all of the treasures she was already well aware of. "Your daddy gets you so much stuff, he clearly loves you way more than my daddy loves me!"

"He's my _boss_ , Darrell. He's _not_ my daddy." Fink spoke with a much sharper tone, as she sat up and gave a low growl at the intruder.

"Look, if you want a present so bad, you can freaking have one!" She held back tears. "In fact, I don't want any of them! Take 'em all! I don't care!"

Fink grabbed a laser gun at the foot of her bed, with the gift tag still attached, and hurled it right at Darrell's head. She ignored his yelp of pain and turned away, realizing her tears were becoming harder and harder to hide. 

"It's just stuff anyway," she muttered as she finally wiped her eyes. "It's not my boss...It's not like he...like he really..."

She turned back to Darrell, and the robot gasped as he saw her normally red eyes much more so, and the fur below them soaked, and as she went on her voice quivered.

"He doesn't love me like a daddy, so he's just my boss! There, do you get it now you bucket of bolts?! Can you just shut up about your own stupid life for once?" She blushed under her fur, noticing Darrell's expression through the blur her tears produced, but was helpless to fight the urge to just curl up and begin sobbing openly.

"He acts...n-nice most of the time, and buys me all these presents, and treats and stuff," (sniff) "but sometimes he's...he's really mean, and he yells at me that he doesn't want...that he doesn't want me around!"

"Hey." Dropping his own complaints immediately, Darrell made his way to Fink's bed and knelt down, using the blanket to pat the little girl's face lest he get her salt water tears all over his hands. "That's not somethin' to cry about, Fink! That's just...how daddies are sometimes."

She slapped the blanket away, sniffling, but didn't stop him from trying (and horribly failing) to reassure her.

"Daddies are supposed to be mean to you and yell at you and stuff! They’re not really supposed to show you love unless you earn it. It's just...how things work."

"No it's not you...you stupid brain-fart!" Fink let out a loud wail, and buried her face into Darrell's chest, the robot hesitant at first but eventually resigning himself to hugging her close as she slowly spoke through sobs. "Daddies are supposed to love you all the time...and t-treat you nice...not just, not just throw presents at you, and tell you to go away and leave ‘em alone!" She sniffled again and looked up, locking eye(s) with Darrell. "That's why...why...he's never gonna be my daddy."

Darrell paused, processing her words, and mentally blocking out the thought of his outer casing slowly beginning to rust with the salt bath she was inadvertently treating him to. He squeezed her tight, then remembered she was organic and needed to breathe, and loosened his grip again.

Instead, he decided to give that comfort thing one more shot. "Um, well...that really does sound mean. Even my own daddy doesn't say things like that a lot, and he's..." He sighed. "He's a lot sometimes too."

He patted Fink's head as she continued sniffling into his chest. "Fink, are you, uh, gonna be okay?"

"...Shut up."

"That...doesn't sound okay." He squeezed her again, this time making sure she could breathe. "Hey, just...cry if you need to. I'm here, I’m not going anywhere."

"You weren’t there yesterday."

"Huh?" Darrell let Fink sob a few more times, and continue once she was ready.

"He did it...yesterday too, he told me...he told me to l-leave him alone. After KO beat me up." She pulled away from Darrell, and smacked him hard right in the spot her face had been. "And you and Shannon were right there in the hallway, and you just...you just let him say it!"

"Well..." Darrell tried to brush off some of the tears now that Fink had pried herself off of him. "We just thought, you know, you failed, and that's what happens when you fail around here!"

His voice softened. "We...I didn't know you were upset. You didn't say anything, so...Never mind. I'm sorry."

Fink's eyes still refused to dry, and this time Darrell pulled her back to him. "I'm here now, okay? You're...kinda my little sister, and big brothers are always there! Siblings are always supposed to be there for you to complain to when you’re hurt, and they’re way nicer than daddies any day, right, Fink?"

"H-How the heck would I know? I never had either one!"

"Yeah, good point..." He sighed. "Well, I'll show you then. I'll spend time with you today, since Professor Venomous won't!"

Fink took a deep breath, finally beginning to calm down. "Darrell, we're coworkers, and you and Shannon babysit me all the time too. We already spend lots of time together."

"Well, not like that! Today we'll do something special, just to cheer you up!" He thought for a second. "You and your daddy always go out for ice cream to spend time together, how about I take you this time?"

Fink shot him a harsh look. "Call him my daddy one more time, and I will hurt you."

"Um...O-okay." Darrell looked around the room at all the weapons she could potentially use to make good on the threat. "He's your boss, I got it."

"Good." She fully dried her eyes. "How we gettin’ out for ice cream all by ourselves though, genius? It’s the middle of the day."

"Shannon and I sneak out the factory loading dock for milkshakes sometimes, and you can show me the way to your favorite place. We’ll be fine!" He hugged her once more. "I’m, uh...just gonna reboot first though."

\---

"Ooh, can you give us extra cherries too?" Darrell smiled as the pair’s order of two hot fudge sundaes with extra fudge and extra rainbow sprinkles was rung up. "They're the best part!"

The cashier thought for a second, and sighed. "I can give you double cherries, sir. But any more and my manager would have a problem with it."

"Aww..." Darrell glanced down at Fink, whose mood obviously still hadn't lifted, even with all the extra stuff promised on her ice cream. He leaned in across the counter and lowered his voice. "Hey, can you at least give her triple? She's had a rough day." 

Darrell covertly motioned towards his charge, and the cashier sighed again. "...Fine, I'll give her the triple, but don't tell the boss."

"You got it!!" Darrell's voice returned to its usual volume to shout, but he quickly slapped his hand over his mouth as he realized what he'd done. "Heh, sorry..."

He whimpered just a tiny bit to himself as he forked over his entire allowance for the month to pay for their sundaes, and handed Fink's down to her.

In response, the girl frowned even harder. "You know, Boss usually gets me quadruple cherries."

Deflated, Darrell just sat down at the first empty table he came to and sighed. He plopped one of his own cherries onto Fink's ice cream to make four, and to his relief, she finally allowed her grumpy expression to soften into a tiny smile.

"You know what?" He gave up his remaining one as well, grinning. "Bet your da...your boss never got you _five_ cherries!"

Fink stared down at the bowl, then back up at the robot. "You...you’re sure? You don’t have any left now!"

"Psh, it’s fine." It wasn’t fine, the cherries were always Darrell’s favorite, but he lied for Fink’s benefit and started on his ice cream. "This is better than a day with your boss already, huh?"

Fink wasted no time in finishing off the cherries and started on the less-important parts of her sundae. "Eh, it’s actually about a medium."

Getting no response to her snarky comeback from Darrell, she looked up and realized he was squinting blankly down at the table, the spoon hanging from his mouth and his eye faded to a dull gray. Fink had never actually seen it happen to one of her new robotic stepsiblings before, but as a gamer she recognized the phenomenon instantly -- _lag_.

She chuckled as his eye eventually flickered back to its normal deep red color, and he gently moaned and rubbed his braincase. 

"Brain freeze?"

"No! I'm fine!" He shivered. "Okay fine, yeah, brain freeze."

Fink laughed even louder.

"There's no insulation there, okay! I can't help it!" As he tried to defend himself, both his humiliation and Fink's amusement grew. 

"Your face though...You looked hilarious, Darrell!"

He smirked, injecting her mocking tone into his comeback. "Not as hilarious as that ceiling crash you got yesterday. A couple more feet on that first bounce and maybe you'd finally get a higher rank than Jethro…"

"Wait, you really rank your own crash landings?" she replied, confused.

"Yeah!" He giggled. "Right now Raymond's still at the top with that one time he did a 720-degree spin straight through Daddy's office, out the back wall, and right into one of the incinerators, but I'll beat him someday!"

He playfully reached across the table and booped Fink's nose a couple of times, to her increasing annoyance. "But, you? You at least gotta learn how to bounce a little higher if you wanna get on our level!"

She stared, dumbfounded, and after a few moments slapped Darrell's hand away. "I don't wanna bounce higher! I don't wanna crash through the ceiling at all! And your stupid crash ranking is dumb anyway, you're just, just..."

She took another bite of her sundae as she tried to find the words she wanted. "You're just making it more fun to lose!"

"Fink, come on. When's the last time we _didn't_ lose?" He rolled his eye and shrugged. "We gotta make it fun somehow, to make up for our daddies punishing us when we get back. No hard feelings on that 4, though, right? I tried to be a little generous."

"Yeah…" Her boss’ recent outbursts made their way back to the surface, and she shifted in her chair. 

"You know, the funny thing is..." Fink shoved her empty bowl aside, and nervously tapped her fingers together a few times. "Yesterday when my boss blew up at me, I was...really craving a cupcake, and wanted to make them with him." She hurriedly glanced back up at the robot as his expression dropped. "But, But this was really good too, Darrell!"

"Wait, you wanted a cupcake?" He smacked his forehead. "Aw man, you shoulda just said so! I totally would have gotten us those instead!" They would have been a lot cheaper, too, though he kept his big mouth shut on that one.

"No, no, no! It's fine, really!" She kicked the chair leg absentmindedly. "Cupcakes are okay, but...I like ice cream too because then you can...talk and stuff. That's why Boss takin' me here is my favorite.."

She looked down. "But...it is really fun to make cupcakes with him too. Boss always decorates ‘em really good, and lets me have all the leftover stuff in the bowl. And it’s a lot better than just, you know, buying me stuff." 

Darrell finished his last bite of the ice cream he'd just bought for the two of them and laughed nervously, a couple tiny beads of artificial sweat leaking out from seams in the metal surrounding his face. "Y-Yeah, definitely. Who needs buying stuff, right?"

"I mean...it’d be okay if my Boss actually played with all those toys with me sometimes," she continued, "but he doesn't even like playing videos game with me at all. Or...I guess making cupcakes." With this she grew quiet again, scowling, leaving her older stepbrother to sweat it out.

"It's...been a while since I last baked anything with my dad," Darrell finally admitted. "But, I think we've still got some cake mix around if you wanna, you know, make some. Just us."

She looked up at him, confused. "Just us? No Boss? Can we... _do_ that?"

"Well, yeah!" He smiled. "And then you won't be craving a cupcake anymore. That'll cheer you right up for sure!"

He tossed their empty ice cream bowls aside, letting the pitiful hero employees take care of the mess, and picked Fink up out of her chair. "Let's get back to the factory. I'll show you how to sneak back in past security!"

"Isn't the security system just Shannon pretending to be a coat rack?"

"Come on, she doesn't like when any of us spoil her fun."

\---

After a few minutes of digging through each of the cluttered Boxmore kitchen cabinets, there was a small cry of victory.

"See? I told you Daddy still had some around!" Darrell slammed the box of vanilla cake mix onto the counter. "Since he isn't baking anything for the board of investors anymore, we don't go through it as fast!"

"Darrell, have you ever actually made cupcakes with your dad before?"

"Nope, just muffins!" he announced, glancing at the instructions on the back of the box. "But they're pretty much the same, right? How hard can it be?"

He spent a few minutes reading, then turned the box around and took a deep, long breath. "Okay, that actually looks pretty hard."

"Give it here, Glass-Brain." Fink snatched the box from Darrell and reached into one of the cupboards for a large mixing bowl, which she shoved into the robot’s hands. Some additional searching produced a spoon, various colorful wrappers, some eggs and a can of chocolate icing, and Lord Boxman’s favorite muffin tray, slightly rusted with overuse but still more than functional. Under her direction Darrell prepared the mix while she set up the tray, picking out whatever paper cups she thought looked best, and kept looking for one final component.

"I can’t find the mixer in here at all!" Fink slammed the cabinet door and climbed a small stepladder she'd set up at the counter, to better observe the preparations. "What kind of baker is Boxbutt if he doesn’t even have a mixer?"

"Please, who needs a mixer? Watch this!" Darrell retracted his hand and started forming his arm cannon, but instead of the open end it was capped with a large drill bit, which he activated and dunked right down into the bowl. Immediately the mixture splattered out across the counter, as well as all over Darrell and Fink.

"...Whoops."

Another box of cake mix, two more eggs, some towels, and a much lower drill setting later, the batter was ready, and Fink allowed Darrell to pour the cupcakes and handle the oven.

"Aah, they smell so good!" Fink hopped up and down a few times and then excitedly bounded back up her stepladder as Darrell pulled the tray of finished cupcakes out of the oven with his bare hands, setting it onto the counter. 

"They do? Awesome!" He stared for a second. "They, uh...came out looking more like muffins though." 

Fink facepalmed. "That's 'cause they need icing on them, doofus."

"Oh yeah." Darrell thought for a second. "They're cup...cakes. I get it now!"

"That's a first." She prepared a piping bag of the icing, and standing carefully on her toes she loomed over the tray with it.

"Are you sure you know how to do that, Fink?"

"I seen Boss do it a hundred times! Watch this!" She squeezed the end of the bag much too hard, resulting in an uncontrolled burst of icing from the nozzle that inelegantly covered the first cake. "Whoops."

"Uh...maybe you should just let me try." 

Fink relented, passing the bag to Darrell, who mimicked her grip on it and successfully piped a much more reasonable amount onto the next cupcake. Satisfied with the new arrangement, Fink stepped down the ladder, and suddenly squeaked in alarm as she caught Professor Venomous in the doorway, his eyes wide as he surveyed the busy, cake batter-covered kitchen.

"Oh, you have got to be..." He rubbed some of the sweat off his forehead, and seemed to take a few extra seconds to focus onto her among the mess. "Fink, I already have so much to do today. I _cannot_ stay here and supervise you two with the oven!"

"Um, Boss?" Fink pointed to the tray on the counter. "We're already done with the oven."

"Yeah, I just turned it off," Darrell added, with a nervous smile. "All we've gotta do is finish the icing!"

"The...icing?" Venomous glanced at the bag in Darrell's hands, and at the tray of tiny yellow cakes behind him, one of which had a gigantic splotch of chocolate icing on it.

Something in his frazzled brain finally surfaced, and he rubbed his face again, this time wiping a couple of stray tears instead of sweat.

"Oh, Fink," he sighed, "you wanted a cupcake yesterday, didn't you? Is this about that?"

Fink slowly nodded, her eyes turned towards the floor rather than daring to meet her boss' gaze.

"I wanted to make them with you, Boss. But…" She fought the tears back down, and grimaced at PV. "But you didn't want to! So, I made them with Darrell instead, because he wanted to spend time with me today and you didn't. So there!"

Venomous blinked a few times.

"Look, I…Fink, yesterday I was just..." He started slow, unsure how to even respond now that he knew the effects of his words, but he knew that when Fink was this upset a response was absolutely needed. "I'm so sorry that my work and all this stress has been cutting into our...you know. Us time." He pulled out a chair and collapsed into it, though still made an effort to keep eye contact with his minion. 

"Fink, I promise, I'll get you a present to make up for it, okay? How about some baking stuff this time, so you can make as many cupcakes as you want, as long as I can trust you and Darrell with the oven." He smiled at the robot, who was oddly absorbed into his icing duties at the counter.

"Oh, shoot, uh...I think I'm doing something wrong here..." He glanced behind him to the table. "Did you say something, Professor Venomous?"

Disregarding him completely, Fink finally spoke up. "Boss, I don't want another present! I just want...you." She rushed to her boss' side and hugged him. "I really love when you get me presents, but they're not as good as when you're just...there. When you want me around."

He thought for a second, obviously straining to do so. "I'm...here now, Fink, at least for a little while. What did you want to do together?"

"I _wanted_ to make cupcakes," she pouted. "But, I guess since Darrell and I already did that...maybe you could have one with us?"

He sighed happily, and smiled. "Some sugar may be good for me right now…I'll gladly try one, thank you."

Fink whooped in delight, and dashed back to her brother. "They're done, right Darrell?"

"Uh, well…" A dismayed Fink glanced up at the finished cupcakes, where each one was indeed iced...but the icing had limply slid off each one, pooling in between rows and oozing off the sides of the tray. All except for the one Fink had accidentally over-iced.

"I couldn't get it to stay on," Darrell explained.

Looking across the kitchen at the display, Venomous sighed. "Darrell, you made sure they were cooled _before_ you applied the icing, right?"

"Um…" He pulled one from the tray, letting the icing flop right off into the empty hole left behind. "Well, they're cooled now, but I started right after I got 'em out of the oven."

"Icing melts if you put it on too early, Darrell."

"Oh…" 

Fink grabbed the over-iced cupcake to deliver to her boss, and then patted Darrell's arm to reassure him once she returned for her own. "It's okay. The cake part's still good even without the icing!"

She snatched the one she'd given the prettiest-looking purple wrapper and took a bite...but then paused as the unbaked center oozed into her mouth. She glanced at Darrell, who seemed to have made the same realization, but who just shrugged and happily wolfed down the rest of his treat, including the wrapper, fully-baked or not.

She followed her big brother's example and hurriedly swallowed that first bite, then shouted to Venomous, "Boss, don't eat that! They didn't get done all the way!"

To her horror, he had already taken his first bite as well, and spit it out into his wrapper. 

"So much for the sugar…" He turned to Fink, though, and managed a small smile. "It's okay, Fink. Maybe...Maybe we can make more in a bit."

She perked up again, the worry from their failure now gone. "Boss...you promise?"

"...Yeah, I promise, Fink." Venomous rubbed his head again. "Darrell did have another upgrade scheduled for this afternoon, but I think maybe if he _gets his backup done on time_ ," he cleared his throat to emphasize his point to the robot, "I may be able to squeeze in a little break after that, if I'm not too tired."

He stood, wobbling and closing his eyes tightly for a second, and backed away from the table.

"Just...let me know when you're ready, okay Fink?" Fink reached out to stop him, but he rushed away, hiding the obviously pained look on his face from her.

"Wow, Professor Venomous didn't even say anything about the mess we made. But, Daddy might..." Darrell grabbed two more cupcakes, shoving both into his mouth.

Fink slowly kept eating hers as well, not letting a few raw eggs get to a tough rat like her. "Well, guess you'd better get to work on it then!"

"Wait, huh? This whole cupcake thing was your idea, you should clean it up!"

She playfully smiled up at Darrell, passing him her wrapper for him to snack on as well. "You're really gonna order your little sister to do it all? I thought you said big brothers were supposed to be nicer than bosses, what kind even does that?"

He paused, looking back down at her, and eventually pulled her into one last hug for the day. "Not this one, I guess. But, you gotta help me, or it's gonna take forever!"

Fink rolled her eyes, giggling. "Fine…But, I guess I can't complain, we still get the rest of the cupcakes."


End file.
